Chapter 595: Snipping the Enemy, the Awakening Shapeshifting Monster

Carefully confirming that the sentry had not discovered him, Xueya Site then moved behind a tree trunk where the other could not see him.

Here, he took out the detailed plan for dealing with the sentry and, following the locations marked on the paper, determined where the large tree he needed was.

It was the large tree to his front-left; although it appeared further from the sentry, in Jier's judgment, at a certain height in the tree, there was actually a "channel" between the two where they could see each other, unobstructed by branches or leaves.

"I don't know how Jier discovered this?"

Xueya Site could not understand how Jier had managed to find such a perfect position for sniping an enemy without personally climbing the surrounding trees.

He did not know that Jier certainly had not gone there himself, but instead let the Spirit observe the surroundings from the enemy's perspective by having the Shadow Bird land beside the enemy, then selecting the most suitable sniping position.

Although he could not understand it, Xueya Site trusted Jier's abilities implicitly, so after confirming the direction, he moved slowly, one small step at a time.

To the sentry soldier on the wooden platform in a nearby tree, the surrounding environment had remained unchanged; while groups of alien Beast orcs had passed through here hunting last night, there had been no other unexpected situations.

There were no enemies as imagined, and even his own people were rarely seen; now, even the forest birds that occasionally flew overhead, chirping and squawking, were gone.

"Sigh—so boring. Next time I rotate posts, I'm never doing this damn sentry duty again. What's the point of this job?" Complaining in a low voice, the sentry simply lay down on the platform and took a small sip of water from the water bottle beside him.

He could not even drink much water, because the water he carried was rationed; several bottles had to last for three days. If he drank more now, he would have none for the coming day. He had to either endure it or return to the Yingdi to get more water.

But he would be scolded if he went back, so to avoid being scolded, he had to drink in small, measured amounts now.

"This is really no life for a human; when will days like this ever end?" After finishing his complaint, the sentry wrapped himself in a fur blanket, deciding to sleep for another half-day, even though he had only just woken up at dawn.

But long hours of sleep had left him with no sleepiness at all; having no other choice, the sentry took out his weapon, waving it around in his hands as he simulated a "life-and-death" battle against an enemy in his mind.

Not far away, Xueya Site was carefully climbing up the large tree.

With the help of the Plant Concealment Cloak, he transformed into a mass of twisted vines clinging to the tree trunk, while his hands used a Dagger to drill holes bit by bit, clinging tightly to the trunk to climb upward.

The holes did not need to be large; they only needed to be big enough for his fingers to grip and his toes to barely step on.

The most troublesome part of this process was not the climbing or drilling holes in the trunk with the Dagger, but doing all this while being careful not to let the Heavy Crossbow on his back bump into anything, lest it accidentally trigger the already-cocked bowstring and the noise alert the sentry soldier nearby.

Xueya Site was actually overthinking it; although the forest was very quiet, the soldier acting as the sentry was clearly mentally unstable due to this job and would never notice the noise coming from his direction. Even if he heard it, he would only think it was another auditory hallucination.

After a good while, a thin layer of sweat seeped onto Xueya Site's forehead, and his hands and feet felt a bit sore, but he finally climbed to the sniping position Jier had provided.

This spot was slightly higher than the sentry platform nearby; after carefully sitting on a branch as thick as a thigh to stabilize his body, Xueya Site poked his head out slightly to observe the sentry's position in the distance.

It was truly miraculous; there happened to be no branches or leaves from the large tree blocking the view between the two, and he could easily see every move on the opposite side.

"How did Jier manage this? It's too amazing!"

Thinking this, Xueya Site couldn't wait to move the Heavy Crossbow from his back, aiming the pre-cocked weapon at the enemy, and carefully took a Heavy Crossbow Bolt from the Quiver on his back.

This thing was as thick as his thumb and nearly half a meter long; it looked very terrifying. Gently sliding it into the track of the Heavy Crossbow, he then brought the tail of the bolt close to the bowstring.

He took a deep breath, used both hands to lift the Heavy Crossbow, and aimed slightly at the enemy who had no sense of danger nearby.

At this distance, with this weapon, there was almost no possibility of the flight trajectory deviating; Xueya Site aimed at the center of the enemy's chest and then pulled the trigger mechanism under the Heavy Crossbow without hesitation.

Bang!

The Heavy Crossbow in his hands shook, and the bolt pierced the enemy's chest in an instant, even pinning the person to the wooden platform beneath them.

He saw it clearly: the other's mouth opened, hands clawed wildly, seemingly wanting to do something, but the destroyed heart made it impossible. Only a few seconds later, the enemy convulsed all over and went limp on the platform.

"Very good, the first enemy!"

Only then did Xueya Site dare to speak, cheering in a low, excited voice.

He moved the Heavy Crossbow to his back, then nimbly took a coil of rope from behind him, fashioned it into a loop around the branch beneath him, and slowly slid down.

Once he reached the ground, he turned the rope, found the knot he had tied, untied it, and with a tug, the coil of rope was back in his hands.

Xueya Site then couldn't wait to walk toward the sentry's position; upon arriving under the large tree where the other was, he quickly found a "simple" channel for climbing up.

The other had not dug grooves into the trunk to go up and down, but had used sections of rope connected to various branches, eventually leading to the wooden platform above.

Xueya Site grabbed the rope, stepped on the trunk with both feet, exerted force bit by bit to climb, and soon reached the top.

As soon as he got up there, he was startled, his hands nearly going limp as he almost fell off.

It turned out the Defeated Soldier sentry on the platform was staring at him with wide eyes! However, it was a false alarm; the other was already dead. Although the eyes were looking this way, the person no longer had a soul, and the pupils were dilated and enlarged.

"Damn it, you nearly scared your father to death!" After cursing, Xueya Site climbed onto the platform and immediately checked the enemy's weapons and equipment.

The Soldier Armor on the enemy was not great, but he carried two Soldier Bows and several quivers of Arrow, clearly intending to hold his ground after encountering an enemy or even engage in a long-range archery duel.

Besides this, the soldier had a Long Sword, Dagger, and other weapons, but there wasn't much else; the small amount of wealth in a leather pouch was likely what the soldier had originally possessed, along with the meager spoils looted from Changmai Village.

Without counting carefully, Xueya Site stripped the enemy's weapons and equipment, bundled them together with the wealth, and used a rope to lower them from there. As for the naked corpse of the enemy, Xueya Site pulled out the Heavy Crossbow Bolt and kicked the body off the platform, letting it fall freely to the ground below.

Confirming there were no useful supplies left on the platform, Xueya Site left, wiping the blood off the Heavy Crossbow Bolt he had used earlier while walking slowly and carefully toward the second sentry's position.

The second sentry's position was not far away, but he had to bypass a sentry position that Jier had marked as a Shapeshifting Monster; Xueya Site dared not face that Monster, so he took a wide detour around its location, walking toward the second sentry position at a steady pace.

But what he did not know was that in the places he had walked, the faint scent of blood drifted slowly with the air currents in the forest to the location of that Shapeshifting Monster.

The Shapeshifting Monster, which had been snoring loudly, gradually stopped, and it became quiet.

It twitched its nose, and after a while, twitched its nose again.

Seemingly confirming something, it opened its eyes; they were a pair of pitch-black, wriggling orbs like the Abyss. But after the eyelids closed and opened again, the eyeballs turned into a pair of blue eyes.

Yet, this fellow's pair of eyes seemed to be in use for the first time; one eye looked to the left, while the other glanced upward, not working in coordination like a human's pair of eyes.

But soon, the Monster learned how to correctly use human eyes; it threw off the bedding on its body, and without moving its legs, its entire upper body stood upright, which was extremely eerie.

Its chin moved, and it made some hoarse sounds.

It was not very satisfied.

So it grabbed its chin with both hands, pulled it down, detached its entire chin, then reached its left hand into its throat, pulling and squeezing to thoroughly adjust the tongue in its mouth.

Then it reattached its chin, clicked its teeth together, and spoke: "I... am... Ka... la... ke... your... good... friend."

It did not seem very satisfied.

It climbed up from the platform, crawling on all fours, and climbed all the way up to a tree hole higher up on the platform; its feet gripped the protrusions on the trunk like a chameleon to fix itself in place, then its hands grabbed the eerily unrotted soldier corpse inside, opened its large mouth, and bit into the half of the soldier's head that had been eaten.

Its mouth opened extremely wide, biting off half a head that a normal person could never bite off in one go, then it exerted force with its mouth, chewed the soldier's skull to pieces, and chewed it repeatedly in its mouth.

Then it swallowed it into its stomach in one gulp.

As for the soldier's corpse, which was now only a neck, it stopped eating, carefully returned it to the tree hole, and then climbed down the large tree with a bulging stomach.

As it crawled, its entire body and movement became more human-like.

By the time it landed, it was already able to stand on two feet and walk with its arms swinging.

Although it still looked as hemiplegic as Wu Laoer, after walking a few steps, its movements became fluid.

"Haha, I am... Kalake... hello... friend... friend."

A smile was on its face, and it babbled nonsense: "Friend... delicious, eat more... friend."

Following the scent of blood that had stimulated its awakening, the Monster walked for a while before looking at the path on the ground that seemed to have been traveled by someone, falling into hesitation.

To the left, the scent of blood was stronger, but the tracks on the ground clearly led to the right.

But the rumbling in its stomach made the choice for it, and the Shapeshifting Monster headed to the left.

"I am Kalake, hello, friend."

It smiled with satisfaction, even waving at an empty space, seemingly simulating the act of greeting.

After walking only a few steps, it made an exciting discovery.

A fresh corpse that had fallen from a tree, its limbs twisted from the fall, was right before its eyes!

And what was delicious was that this corpse was very clean, without the troublesome Soldier Armor on it, directly exposing the tasty Human flesh, as if it were enticing it to feed.

But this Shapeshifting Monster was not stupid; it did not rush to eat immediately, but looked left and right, even drawing a Steel Dagger used by Humans from its waist, waving it around in its hand a few times.

It opened its mouth and shouted: "Friend, come out, friend!"

There was no response from the surroundings.

It was unwilling to give up: "I have found you, friend, please come out!"

There was still no response from the surroundings, and now it felt at ease; it put away the Dagger, leaped fiercely from where it stood, and pounced on the corpse on the ground ahead.

While still in mid-air, it opened its mouth, revealing a mouthful of sharp teeth as the mouth flipped open, and the tips of its fingers split, revealing pitch-black, tough, and sharp claws, which it used to tear open the chest of the corpse, preparing to feast on the most tender and delicious Viscera of the Human.

But the huge wound in the center of the corpse's chest left it quite disappointed; the Human heart was a very delicious part, second only to the Human liver.

But fortunately, although only fragments of the heart remained in the chest, the liver with its bloody hue revealed after the flesh of the abdomen was sliced open still made this Monster quite satisfied.

With a mouth full of sharp teeth, it bit down and began to gorge itself.

Xueya Site knew nothing of this; he had already arrived not far from the second sentry Soldier he needed to take out.

Just like before, he leaned his back against a tree trunk, carefully studying the battle plan Jier had left for him.

The plan Jier gave was very detailed, not only marking which enemy to attack first, but also noting the location of each enemy, as well as the sniping position he needed to reach and the required height.

As long as he reached that position and that height, he could, just like before, find a natural sniping "channel."

"The second person, hmm, is—here!"

After carefully poking his head out several times to confirm the location, Xueya Site found the tree he needed to go to. Afterward, he carefully put away the paper, tidied up the equipment on his body, and cautiously walked over there.

Compared to before, his movements were much more agile this time, and his mindset was much more relaxed because he had successfully completed one sniping mission.

Although he was not yet completely free of tension, at least he would no longer break into a sweat from nervousness.

"Hmm?"

On the tree platform, the sentry Soldier who was sharpening his Long Sword seemed to sense something; he stopped his work, first pricking up his ears to listen to the movement around him, and then leaned his body further out, carefully peering downward.

This Soldier thought it was those alien Beast creatures passing by on the ground below, but after looking at the ground below, he did not find any traces of those small, mottled-furred hairballs.

"Did I see wrong?" He looked carefully again and found that apart from withered branches and fallen leaves, there was only a half-broken dead tree drooping there.

Not realizing anything was wrong, he pulled his head back and continued to sharpen his weapon, even muttering to himself in a low voice: "This damn Shulin, this damn Southern Mountains, I must have been driven crazy by it. Yes, I must be crazy; perhaps I haven't even realized that I've already gone mad?"

Saying these incomprehensible words, he even held his sharpened Soldier Changjian against his own neck, miming a slicing motion a few times, and then laughed: "How could I possibly die here? What am I thinking? I've even made it through the terrifying Southern Mountains, what else could defeat me?"

But he hadn't been smug for long when a "bang" sound rang out from a tall tree to his side, and faster than the sound, a clean Heavy Crossbow Bolt—this lethal thing—dragged a blurred line through the air, directly piercing the Soldier's left arm Armor, left arm, and left chest Armor, then penetrating the entire chest cavity, and after shattering the heart, exiting from the other side of the chest.

The immense force even carried this Defeated Soldier off the wooden platform, causing him to fall directly to the ground.

From a height of seven or eight meters, even if the person hadn't died from the Heavy Crossbow Bolt, falling from this distance would leave them dead or half-crippled.

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